July 22nd, 2004

Filed under:
Music
8 Comments »

Has Anybody Tried AllofMP3.com?

AllofMP3.com is a Russian online music distributor akin to the iTunes Music Store or PureTracks (apparently PureTracks doesn’t support Mozilla). Their shtick is that their pricing is a fraction of those stores, they have the same size catologue and they’re legal under Russia. They treat music like bulk candy, charging by size. It costs US $5.00 for 500 MB. At average quality, that’s about 100 songs. More importantly, there’s no DRM. We all know how I feel about DRM. Here’s a suspiciously efusive review. Here are a couple of others.

There was some foofaraw about them back when they launched back in April, but very little mainstream media coverage. Lately, they’ve been totally under the radar.

Has anybody tried this service? My only concern is, you know, sending my credit card details to Russia. I searched around the blogosphere, and the user experiences seem positive, so I think I’ll give it a try.

Comments: 8 Responses so far

Kyle
July 22nd, 2004
8:23 pm

The only thing I wonder is if money gets back to the artists from this. If not, might as well stick with downloading for free.

[Reply]

Jacob
July 23rd, 2004
9:33 am

I’ve been using them since May, and have downloaded… let me check… just about 4 GB worth of MP3’s so far (that’s only 40 bucks!). I can’t recommend it highly enough; this is what music downloading should be like.

That said, there’s a few things I’ve discovered that will make your experience better, should you choose to use it:

1) During peak hours, the site can be insanely slow. Use a download managager that allows you to queue up a bunch of downloads, then let it run overnight; trying to download all the music in your browser is an exercise in futility.

2) When ordering music, use the “advanced options” and select LAME –alt-preset=standard, if possible. That’ll give you the best sound quality for your money.

[Reply]

Aaron
July 23rd, 2004
1:43 pm

I’ve used it too. I was a little worried about the cc issue too, so I used the Pay Pal option. Somehow it just seems a little safer.

Echoing Jacob: use the download manager.

Quality has been fine for me, but pick what you like. Try to avoid the addiction by taking a little time off between purchases.

[Reply]

Bob Lee
July 23rd, 2004
2:15 pm

It totally is an addiction. I can’t stop downloading at this point. My boss had me download 38 albums and use iTunes to print cd-cover art - FUN project.
in any event, I use an iMac, so had to write my own d/l manager in perl (nothing crazy, but gets the job done - and imports into iTunes).
The paypal option seems the… safest?

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Anonymous
July 23rd, 2004
4:03 pm

It is theft. They do not pay the artists nor do they pay the RIAA or anyone else in the completely broken music food chain.

I repeat: the artists do not see a dime for their content sold via allofmp3.com.

While the quality may be better, the legality and morality is not better than using Kazaa or their ilk to steal music.

They may claim they are legal, and they may even be legal in their little corner of the world, but that doesn’t make it universally legal.

[Reply]

Darren
July 23rd, 2004
4:12 pm

You’re right about the music food chain being (deeply) broken, but have you got any proof that it’s theft? I don’t know much about Russian copyright law, but here’s what it says on their site:

“All the materials in the MediaServices projects are available for distribution through Internet according to license # LS-3М-03-79 of the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society. Under the license terms, MediaServices pays license fees for all the materials subject to the Law of the Russian Federation “On Copyright and Related Rights”. All the materials are available solely for personal use and must not be used for further distribution, resale or broadcasting.”

[Reply]

Aaron
July 23rd, 2004
5:36 pm

Ok, I don’t know about the legality of it either. A few months ago I emailed the RIAA asking if AllOfMP3.com was ok to use, and they didn’t say a word. I would think that if it was illegal, we’d be hearing about it by now. I really doubt that it is illegal (technically).

As for the morality. I have no problem treating the RIAA and other blood suckers as badly as they’ve treated me. As far as the artists are concerned, they’re more harmed by not being heard than by the money they may or may not have lost. I’d be willing to bet that the vast (>90%) of songs downloaded from AllOfMP3.com are songs that people would never have paid for, even without Kazaa. If you really like the artist, then spend money where they’ll get paid a good cut. Go to concerts, buy directly from them (like at http://www.theymightbegiants.com), spread the word (like I just did), etc…

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Christy
October 12th, 2006
4:01 am

During last two years I use only
Lavamus.com. Huge archive of music of any direction. Songs on
10-30 cents. Has spent already the order of 500 dollars. I wish to learn, somebody used
Lavamus.com?

[Reply]

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